Roads North: Union reforms expose Rebel secrets

By MARC CHARISSE, The Evening Sun

Saturday, June 22, 2013

JUNE 23, 1863 — At long last, Union Gen. Joe Hooker decides it might be time to move his army in pursuit of Robert. E. Lee. But Abraham Lincoln has lost faith in his general and Hooker will not command much longer.

Despite his failures as a combat leader, however, Hooker has instituted needed reforms that will soon benefit the Union. One of the most far-reaching, if under-appreciated, changes is the establishment of the nation’s first real intelligence service.

When Hooker takes command of the Army of the Potomac in January 1863, he fires Allan Pinkerton as chief of military intelligence. Despite his fame as an investigator, Pinkerton had provided such gross overestimates of Confederate strength that his boss, Gen. George McClellan, thought he was vastly outnumbered during the 1862 Antietam campaign, when he in fact outnumbered Lee nearly two to one.

Replacing Pinkerton was Yale lawyer Col. George Sharpe, who brought real intelligence to military intelligence. One of Sharpe’s innovative ideas was the creation of something like the modern witness-protection program. He induced captured Confederate officers to divulge military secrets with promises of relocation and a new life up North. Sharpe’s initiatives meant the Union would finally have accurate information on Rebel troops — the kind of information the Confederates would sorely lack at Gettysburg.

Tomorrow:Train to GettysburgRoads North is a day-by-day series by Evening Sun editor Marc Charisse. Track the whole series, and learn all about local Civil War history, online at http://bit.ly/roadsnorth.